Obama’s decision to authorize U.S. airstrikes in Iraq the first step in a larger plan

WASHINGTON — The decision to authorize U.S. airstrikes seemed to come quickly, forced on U.S. President Barack Obama by the sudden advance of Sunni jihadists on Erbil and the grim plight of Yazidi children dying on barren mountainsides, but, in truth, it was several months in gestation.

As senior Obama administration officials conceded, the frantic 48 hours of situation-room meetings with national security advisors and senior generals that began Wednesday night, could be traced directly to Mr. Obama’s decision last June to send 800 U.S. military advisors to Iraq.

Officials said a joint operating centre in Erbil, northern Iraq, and Baghdad had been designed to create “a platform to act as nimbly as possible” if the worst was to occur.

And unfortunately, beginning last Saturday, that’s exactly what happened: as fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) swept across northern Iraq, even strikes by Iraqi air units, equipped with U.S. Hellfire missiles, did not slow them.

By Tuesday it was clear even the Kurdish stronghold of Erbil, and the trading gateway to southern Iraq, was under serious threat. Iraq was on the brink.

Mr. Obama has been a deeply reluctant warrior during his time as U.S. president, but in the end he was faced with a simple and limited choice: risk the total collapse of Iraq or use U.S. hard power to stall an emerging civil war.

The decision was not long in coming.

At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, the U.S. president made a prime-time address, explaining why America was, however reluctantly, going to be drawn back into Iraq’s sectarian quagmire. There would be no U.S. boots on the ground, he assured Americans, but equally while a new government was being formed in Baghdad, the U.S. was not going to stand aside and let ISIS fighters sweep all before them.

Ostensibly the authorization to use force covered two narrow objectives: to break the siege of the Yazidi minority in the mountains south of Sinjar and to protect U.S. personnel operating in the Kurdish stronghold of Erbil.

But listening to senior administration officials it is clear the ultimate mandate extends far beyond these goals to encompass the broader strategic objective of preventing ISIS from destroying Iraq.

Iraqis and the Kurdish peshmerga forces will do the fighting on the ground, but if ISIS commanders were listening, it was clear the most powerful military nation on earth is now, to quote one senior administration official, ready to “fill the gaps” in the Kurdish and Iraqi national forces.

Since June the U.S. has been pouring weaponry and anti-tank ammunition into Iraq — officials say the Hellfire missile factories have been working “seven days” to meet demand — as well as sending those “technical advisors” to support the effort against ISIS.

The mission had begun even before the president spoke, with aid drops to the 40,000 stranded Yazidis, a night-time operation involving low-level passes by two C-130 and C-17 aircraft escorted by a pair of F-18 fighters.

Friday that humanitarian mission was followed by two pinpoint strikes against ISIS artillery shelling Erbil.

Officials said the U.S. was “laying down a marker,” making clear unless ISIS conducts a tactical withdrawal, we can expect to see U.S. ground-attack aircraft striking hard at the jihadists, taking out the heavy weaponry with which they have outgunned the peshmerga. And even though the immediate mission is limited to defending Erbil and breaking the siege of the Yazidis, administration officials were careful not to limit the possibilities.

Perhaps ISIS commanders were betting Mr. Obama and a war-weary nation would not have the stomach for another military engagement in Iraq: that now appears to have been a serious miscalculation.

Asked, for example, whether the jihadist fighters who captured the strategically vital Mosul Dam — which controls Baghdad’s water supply — could be put that on the target list, officials certainly didn’t rule it out.

How far the administration needs to stretch remains to be seen, but the reality is however Mr Obama varnishes this mission, he has signalled the U.S. will not let Iraq disintegrate or fall into the militants’ hands.

That is a significant decision, taken only after all other options were exhausted.